He picked his way across the living room. She moved in the kitchen, and there was a hiss of something hitting the griddle. Dishes dried on a rack next to the sink, and the stove was scrubbed gleaming-clean, as if Daisy had just stepped away.
The sidhe—she had to be mortal-Tainted, like Jeremiah himself—picked up Daisy’s plastic turner, the exact one she always used for pancakes. Her slim shoulders were stiff, as if she expected him to shout. Her free hand, resting on the pale blue counter, curled into a half-fist.
He found words, finally. “Who. The hell.”
“Robin.” She half-glanced over her shoulder. A slice of pale perfect cheek, a glimpse of her aristocratic nose. A dimple, just as quickly lost as she turned back to the griddle. It was a huge, balky electrical thing, easily older than Daisy. “Robin Ragged, if you’re feeling formal.”
The kitchen window let in a hot bar of spring sunshine. It burnished her naked shoulder, and Jeremiah’s throat was dry as the Mojave. In this light, no mortal-Tainted glamour would hold up completely. He would see her face when she turned to him. Leaden, he waited.
“I thought this was the least I could do.” She flipped the pancakes expertly. Reached up and opened the cupboard for a flowered plate. She’d washed dishes, too; not a single dirty one remained. The coffeemaker kept gurgling. “He almost had me, last night. I owe—”
“There is no debt.” The words bolted free. “I was equally at risk.” Now there was a lie, and it stung his lips.
“Nevertheless.” Now she sounded amused. “I didn’t bring sugarpowder, but there’s syrup. You had no buttermilk.”
I had no milk at all, and no bread either. No salt. There’s iron buried under my doorstep. “You’re at least Half. You have to be. Why were you running?”
Her shoulders came up slightly. She piled the pancakes on the plate, turned away to pick up a fork, and spun on her bare heel to face him. Her skirt moved with a low, sweet sound, and her face…
No. She wasn’t Daisy. Still, there was the same nose, and the chin. The beautiful cheekbones. No fading, no intimation of mortal death or sagging on her. “Tainted, but straight Half. I’m under commission, and I… My talents are not like yours.”
“What, you’re Twisted?” Yet there was no twisting on her. A reflexive insult, to keep her at arm’s length. “What was wrong with that knight? We didn’t even exchange names. And he was—”
“Rotting with blackboil. Yes. This won’t stay hot forever.” She all but shoved the plate into his hands, and he took it numbly. “He was plagued. How do you take your coffee? Black?”
He took it with milk, like any self-respecting sidhe. But he merely nodded and retreated. The table had been cleared, papers stacked haphazardly at one end. One of the good blue linen placemats sat there; a sparkling jelly glass held a few weedflowers from the field behind the trailer. She must have dug in a drawer for that placemat, and the sudden fury that shook him made the marks itch on his arms, all the way up to his aching shoulders.
Plagued. But sidhe don’t take ill. Not like that, anyway. There’s poison, and the iron-burn, but neither looks like that.
She busied herself in the kitchen, making little sounds but no longer humming. He stared at the steaming pancakes. Perfectly golden, perfectly round. A ceramic dish Daisy had used as an ashtray held pats of butter, each individually wrapped and probably stolen from a restaurant. The blue ceramic was scrubbed clean, no trace of cigarette remaining.
Robin Ragged. Not a bad name, but not one he’d ever heard of either, and probably not her entire name. He hadn’t given his, either. Well, he wasn’t taking a debt; he didn’t have to give even a use-name.
She tripped blithely around the end of the breakfast bar with a smaller plate. A mound of crispy bacon tangled like tentacles. She set down a coffee mug as well, one he hadn’t seen since the morning after the accident, when he’d filled it with milk and sat, stunned. In this very chair, as a matter of fact. “There. Do you want a glass of milk? I brought orange juice, too.”
“How did you…” Yet he knew how she’d made it over his doorstep. The quirpiece. He glanced instinctively at the counter, to see if she’d left the leaf or stone it had been made from, and his breath caught in his throat.
She followed his glance. The quirpiece sat, glowing-mellow, still silver. Still real.
“I have some small skill as a Realmaker.” Now her bright cheerfulness faltered. Her eyes darkened to indigo now, the irises flooding with dusk. “It makes me… valuable.”
She said it like it meant dangerous. It probably did. The halfbreeds who showed promise as Realmakers were customarily snapped up by both Courts before their third birthdays, changelings sometimes left temporarily in return, except the Realmaker children weren’t returned, and their placeholders not sacrificed in the usual way but buried alive.
So how did this girl know how to cook mortal food? Bannock and apples would have been more a Court-raised Realmaker’s forte.
“I wasn’t taken until I was twelve, and I… have no shadow.” A pretty way of saying there wasn’t a changeling buried in an oaken cask somewhere in Summer, quietly moldering. Her face set itself, a shade less lovely in that moment. “Anyway, I’m under commission now. Summer may possibly be grateful for your aid, and she’ll reward you. If you want it.” A quick nervous flicker of her tongue as she wet her lips. “I’d caution you, though. Court isn’t safe nowadays.”
Of course, she wouldn’t refer to Summer by her formal name, even with the Queen before. Only a fullblood would do such a thing. And Court, safe? A bubbling chuckle rose up like acid in him. “It never was.” He stabbed at the pancakes. They didn’t turn into anything else, so he cut a bite loose, lifted it cautiously to his mouth.
“No butter?” She sounded disappointed.
Belatedly, he realized how rude he was. It wasn’t like he cared. Still…“Bring a butter knife. And have some as well.”
She examined him for a long moment, weighing. Of course, if she was Court she would be looking for the hook in the words. It was a hard habit to break.
A habit he had never broken. Except with Daisy, and even then not completely.
I’m used to men keeping things close, Jer. Said very softly in the dark haven of their bed. It’s all right.
Had he been stupid to believe her?
“I’ll have some milk,” the sidhe-girl said, finally. “And make you more.” With that, Robin Ragged turned with that quick birdlike grace, her skirt whispering again, and hopped into the kitchen as if something chased her.
Was it just his imagination? Was it just her coloring making him think of Daisy? Reddish hair wasn’t that uncommon.
Now he had the urge to get up, go back into the bedroom, and look for the photos. At least then he wouldn’t have the feeling that his wife’s face had grayed out of his faithless sidhe memory, replaced by this stranger’s.
No. She looks like Daisy. How many redheads would, though?
Jeremiah settled himself to eat. She didn’t chantment again, and the morning must have been part-cloudy. The sunlight dimmed, and he found himself staring at the quirpiece’s bright gleam. A Realmaker. Robin Ragged. Barefoot in his kitchen. Looking so much like his dead, rotting wife his heart squeezed down on itself like a clockwork toy in a high-gravity well each time she tilted that russet head of hers.
She settled gingerly in Daisy’s chair—the only other seat at the table since he’d smashed the other two to flinders one drunken night and thrown them out the sliding doors. There was a whole pile of junk back there, scattered over the half-finished deck.
The glass of milk held a faintly bluish tint, compared to her skin. She toyed with it, and when she finally took a dainty sip, something in him relaxed slightly. The bacon was just crunchy at the edges, the way he liked it. The coffee was passable—not nearly strong enough.
It was a relief to find something she didn’t do like Daisy Snowe had.
She was silent as he ate, drinking her milk in tiny hummingbird nec
tar-sips. Watching him, those dark blue eyes fathomless. A thread-thin golden chain holding a teardrop of a locket glittered at her throat, probably true metal if she was a Realmaker. The single piece of jewelry nagged at him, but he couldn’t think of why. He studied the line of her jaw as he chewed, the arches of her cheekbones, the fragile notch between her collarbones. Even when still she looked restless. A delicate, feathered exotic in his dirty heap of a house. Had he looked the same way to mortals, ever?
Not half as pretty, Gallow. Next to Robin, Daisy would have looked washed-out, pale, worn-down.
Good thing she’s not here, then, right? The old dull fury tried to rise; he pushed it down. He hadn’t even looked at another woman since Daisy’s death; why was he even curious about this sidhe now?
Finally, he mopped up a last lake of amber syrup, suppressed a belch, and took a hit off the fresh cup of coffee. He’d forgotten what it was like to eat a real mortal breakfast.
When he looked up, she was studying him in turn. A faint vertical line showed between her arched eyebrows, and her mouth at rest was a sweet curve.
“Robin.” He set his fork down precisely, took another sip of coffee. “You can call me Gallow.”
She nodded, her shoulders easing. “I don’t mean to be trouble. I really don’t. I thought the quir would break my trail and the rider would—”
“A man died in there.” Harshly, because he still tasted the bacon and the sweetness of maple blood. “But I suppose that doesn’t matter.”
“Died?” She looked puzzled, before her entire body drooped. “You mean a mortal? In the tavern?” Disbelief, very prettily played. Some part of it might even be genuine. “I thought the Unseelie wouldn’t…” A catch, as if her throat was full.
It wasn’t them; it was the chaos you caused. And it was more than one, but I didn’t know them. “His name was Panko.” The ash of his anger burned his own tongue.
She nodded. Slowly, coppergold curls falling forward. “Panko.” Repeated it. “Panko. I will remember.”
It wasn’t what he expected. Most sidhe would’ve been honestly befuddled by his harshness. Mayfly mortals died. It was what they did. The sidhe died, too, of violence or of an old age measured in geologic spans. Except pixies and ivyfalse brughnies, of course, but even they didn’t care much for a human life.
Remembrance was a mortal trick.
“Panko,” she murmured again. “I’m sorry. He was your friend?”
“Coworker.” Then, because she might not understand, “Yes, friend.” The concept of work and paycheck really didn’t sink in for most sidhe, either.
“Oh.” She watched him for a long moment, then rose swiftly. Robin was a good name for her; she hopped like a small bird. “I didn’t know. I’ll be going, then.” She turned, scooped the quirpiece off the counter with swift grace, and was headed for the door.
Maybe she thought he’d require bloodgilt. Jeremiah’s hands lay on the table, flat and loose. As if the tattoos weren’t itching, digging in, whispering how easy it would be. The lance could slide free, pinning her in place against the wall, and he could feel its hunger as it took yet another life. He could even tell himself it was payment for Panko, whose wife would have nobody mocking her for fearing the basement now.
Once he’d killed here in his very house, there was no reason to stay and pretend to be mortal any longer. And yet… all he had to do was sit still until she crossed his threshold, and he could be free of the whole mess. Except the questions and the lies on Monday. He could stay as he had been these past months. Hell, these past years.
Playing at being mortal. Playing at mortal grief.
His own voice surprised him. “Don’t.” He made it to his feet, creaking like an old man, a warm lump of breakfast weighing him down. “Don’t leave.”
She stopped, shoulders set. He could see the mending in the blue dress now, rips and tatters closed with exquisite needlework, probably chantment. At Court, would she wear the same dress? The glory of her hair and those eyes would be her passport; she wouldn’t need—or be allowed, more likely—finery. No cobweb lace, no cloth-of-gold, no draperies made of sighs. No damask, no sweeping train, no mantles.
Not for a half-mortal.
Was Ragged a use-name? Had she chosen it to make a badge of her mortal shame?
“You haven’t had breakfast,” he finished lamely, even though she’d taken the milk. If she was Court-raised, she might well need nothing else… but she’d said she was older when she was taken, right? It didn’t matter. After breathing the air of either Court long enough, the mortal appetite became a shadow of itself. A changeling left to mark a place, halfway between.
She still did not turn to look at him, and he suddenly wanted to cross the distance between them, take her shoulders, and make her. Because with her back to him it was as if Daisy was leaving, stepping out the door again to go to the store.
Just a quart of half-and-half, you like your cream so much. We’re almost out. She’d laughed, hitching her purse up on her shoulder… and later, the call from the police. The wreckage, the hospital’s machines, and the brassy final reek of death.
“I’m under commission. I’ve lingered long enough as it is.” Her shoes were by the door; it was a moment’s work to step into them. Still, she hesitated. “I thank you for your hospitality, Gallow. I’ll offer advice, too, though you don’t recognize any debt.” One foot slid into the low black Cuban heel, muscle in her dancer’s calves flickering. “There’s a plague about, stalking the sidhe. Bar your door and carry iron with you. She is unhappy, there is conspiracy, and things have grown dangerous of late.” Her second shoe, and Jeremiah was nailed in place.
It was all so much noise. “Don’t go,” he managed. “Please.”
She looked back over her shoulder. “If you knew me, you wouldn’t ask me to tarry.” A shadow of sadness, and it copied the weariness of mortality so exactly that for a single crystalline moment she looked like… not Daisy, but his wife as she might have been with a sidhe’s gloss. “Take care, Gallow.”
He took another two stumbling steps forward, but the door opened. A flash of blue and brown, and she was gone. She hopped over the cold iron buried under his threshold and disappeared into morning sunshine.
Jeremiah sagged on his feet. The tattoos itched unbearably. The entire trailer smelled like bacon, pancakes, the indefinable sweetness of a place a clean, beautiful woman has just been breathing. He filled his lungs several times. Even the faint mildew of the laundry pile had retreated, replaced by fresh air.
He finally piled all the dishes in the sink. The coffee was still hot, so he poured himself another cup. He settled on the couch, right next to a mound of dirty laundry, and stared at the blank glass face of the television set as if it would tell him something.
A CERTAIN SATISFACTION
14
Thin sunshine could not warm a sharp breeze redolent of exhaust and rotting wood. It skipped across St. Martin’s Avenue, lingered at a stone wall, and licked at a shadow darting up the moss-stained wall-face in a lizard-flicker. Once it reached the shelter of branches overhead, the shadow thickened, and Puck Goodfellow braced himself on an oak tree’s huge, brittle arm. The wall itself was wide enough that he could walk along it, ignoring the sharp, unpleasant nipping sensation stabbing his quick feet.
On the other side, cool greenness beckoned, but he did not leap down. Willows trailed their spiny fingers, the grass soaked with mineral-smelling water and other substances, bright spots of plastic gewgaws or—more rarely—actual blossoms, dying but held fast in cones, and the stones. Some upright, some a-tumble, some set flat in the earth, they hadn’t changed since the last time he had occasion to prance along this confounded heap of stone.
Although green, this park gave him no pleasure, because of the gray bulk rising in the distance. Atop its highest spire, the hated symbol of singularly joyless invaders spread its bony arms, worked over and over again into the colorful windows and repeated on some of the stones.
&
nbsp; The sideways realms were wide and varied, between the place of mortals and the Second Veil’s shimmering, deadly barrier. In another few years, Summer’s Gates would move, according to its whims, and another city would hold its garlanded mouth. Unwinter had entrances everywhere, and the free counties overlapped anywhere they could, but Summer… well, perhaps it craved mortals to contrast itself with.
Or perhaps she did.
It was mere chance that the Gates lingered here. Although, of course, the Goodfellow liked to think chance favored him, as he was in a certain way her eldest. They called him the Fatherless, when they thought he could not hear.
It pleased him to think most believed it.
He squinted, spotting a fir’s dark drooping, and danced into its shadow just as she appeared, her russet head down and her skirt fluttering, tugging at her knees while the breeze fingered her bare arms and teased her curls.
A Half would feel none of the stabbing from such cursed ground.
The fir’s shadow was a balm. He climbed and leapt, the tree sleepily waking enough to breathe fragrance over him. He settled comfortably where he could see a particular stone, next to a notch made in the trunk’s thick bark by his little knife. Marking a tree did not make it heartsblood, of course, but there was still a certain satisfaction in knowing even here, at the edge of a cursed churchyard, he could in time spread his influence down through living sap and spreading roots.
She brought no flowers, her hands bare and empty as she trudged up a slight rise, stepping off the narrow strip of cracked paving. Her heels did not sink in the wet loam, but she stepped delicate as a doe, unwillingly, until she reached a stone no different from the rest—the very one Puck could see through a convenient parting in the fir’s green robe.
He knew the name that would be chipped on the stone. Sometimes he fancied this was the Ragged’s idea, to lay such bones in hatefully consecrated soil to keep them from… disturbance. They would not be half so pretty now as they once were when a mayfly mortal’s brief blossoming had enchanted the eye and hand.